By Dzemaluddin Latic

National poet of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Dr. Latic is currently a faculty member of the Faculty of Islamic Sciences at Fatih Sultan Mehmet Vakif University, Istanbul.

ISTANBUL 

On Oct. 7, the presidential and parliamentary elections will be held in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH). Seventy-two parties will be running. Election campaigns are in progress, but there is a growing uncertainty and fear amongst the citizens of all nationalities. At a time of great changes in the Balkan, European and world contexts, what is awaiting Bosnia and Herzegovina in the coming period? Being "a scale-model of the world”, what will happen to Bosnia, knowing that its future will be essentially influenced by external political factors -- as it has often been the case during its millennial history?

In the Balkans, this context has become even more complicated by the entry of Montenegro and Macedonia into the NATO alliance, and in particular by the Serbian-Albanian relations due to the still unresolved status of Kosovo. One of the basic issues bothering Bosnia is whether Kosovo will get a territorial distinction from Serbia, and, if that should happen, whether the redrawing of borders in the Balkans will stop there.

The Serbian and Kosovar negotiating parties are sending confusing and contradictory messages, while the European Union and some of its members, in particular Germany, expressly reject such a possibility, guided by the principle that the boundaries in Europe are a relative issue; they do not necessarily change or cement. As a rule, the U.S. and Russia have opposite views here too: the U.S. has recognized the independence of the Republic of Kosovo and is asking its allies to follow suit, while Russia stands on the opposite side.

Dodik sure to win nationalist Serbian votes

Serbia, which is a candidate for EU membership, must not link the case of Kosovo and Bosnia and Herzegovina, but Milorad Dodik, the president of Bosnia’s autonomous Serb Republic (Republika Srpska), a candidate for the Serb seat in the tripartite presidency of Bosnia in the upcoming elections, and a Russian player in what is a very tough Balkan roulette game, is actually doing that very persistently. His Alliance of Independent Social Democrats (SNSD) has formed a pre-election coalition with smaller socialist parties and will most likely win the most votes in the nationalist Bosnian Serb camp. His rival is the Alliance for Victory (SzP), a coalition of the Party of Democratic Progress (PDP) and the Serbian Democratic Party (SDS), led by Mladen Ivanic (the current Serb member of the Bosnian presidency). Declaratively leading a somewhat more moderate policy, Ivanic argues that Republika Srpska cannot and must not be separated from Bosnia and Herzegovina in the next few decades, and that any such attempt would be a prelude to a dangerous adventure bound to result in a war. Bosnia is a candidate for EU membership and the NATO alliance, and Ivanic also gives a mild, and not very unreserved, support to that "road map”.

Nationalist Croats seeking third entity in Bosnia

Things are at a boiling point in the Bosnian Croat national camp as well. Dragan Covic, the leader of the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) and the current Croat member of the Bosnian presidency, leads a coalition that his party entered into with a number of minor parties that exclusively gather and seek the support of Bosnian Croats, thereby bringing additional fears of a likely post-election dissolution. Namely, during his mandate, Covic has continually provoked a crisis in Bosnia by making an alliance with Dodik and seeking to carve a third and exclusively Croatian entity out of Bosnia, in which attempt he has been enthusiastically supported by Dodik, who is already seeking to undermine the unity of the Bosnian state. Both Bosnian politicians are accusing Bosniaks of seeking, through their commitment to a civil, multi-ethnic state of Bosnia, to form a majority over Bosnian Serbs and Bosnian Croats.

Zelenika factor

But, opposite Covic and his coalition stands Dijana Zelenika, a candidate of the HDZ 1990, who has brought a positive atmosphere to the Bosnian political life. She leads a coalition that is deeply committed to rescuing Bosnia as a common homeland and taking over power from the nationalists, who, at this historic moment, want to ruin Bosnia. Zelenika accuses Covic of continually undermining Bosnia and rejecting a political alliance with Bosniaks in their fight against the "Greater Serbia", which is Dodik's project. Zelenika, a declared Catholic, apparently with the support of Angela Merkel, fights for the survival of Catholicism and Croatism throughout Bosnia and Herzegovina, and not only in western Bosnia, where a small number of Croats live.

Croatian President Franjo Tudjman, who, during the 1992-1995 war, made a secret deal with Slobodan Milosevic on the break-up of Bosnia, followed a policy of renouncing the Croats of central and northern Bosnia, whose territory he gave to the Serbs who were being expelled from the Republic of Croatia during the war. Aware of the catastrophe that befell the Bosnian Croats, Zelenika and her coalition wants to regenerate the central and northern Bosnia and restore the historical alliance with the Bosniaks, who were the greatest victims of the policy of "Greater Serbia" during the 20th century.

Cardinal Vinko Puljic, an important figure who is originally from the northern Bosnia, unequivocally supports this political concept and seeks the same rights for all citizens and peoples throughout Bosnia.

Bosniaks divided into many camps

The Bosniak voter body is divided into several groups. The former leading Bosniak party, the Party of Democratic Action (SDA), is struggling for its ninth election victory. Pre-election coalitions have not been formed in this constituency, but post-election coalitions have already been announced.

In the second half of the year, the SDA experienced new break-ups: Dino Konakovic, a former prime minister of the Sarajevo Canton, parted ways with the SDA and formed the People and Justice party, and Mirsad Kukic from the Tuzla Canton formed the Democratic Action Movement (PDA). Last year, former SDA cadres and leaders formed the first independent Bosnian-Herzegovinian List (NBL) led by Ibrahim Hadzibajric, the head of the Sarajevo Municipality of Stari Grad, a prominent advocate of Bosnian/Bosniak-Turkish ties and a new concept of fraternity and unity of Bosniak people based on religious traditions, and not on the communistic atheization of society and politics.

It is hard to imagine that one of these newly formed parties would join a post-election coalition with the SDA. Its angry opponents, who for years have stated that they would never enter into a coalition with the SDA, are the Alliance for a Better Future (SBB), the Social Democratic Party (SDP, neo-Communists), and the Democratic Front (DF, neo-Communists apart from the SDP).

Izetbegovic-Radoncic rivalry

The SBB is led by Fahrudin Radoncic, a journalist who received a donation from President Alija Izetbegovic at the end of the war and founded a daily newspaper (Dnevni List), and then the Dnevni Avaz media house. He is one of the richest businessmen in Bosnia. He is the SBB’s candidate for the Bosniak seat of the Bosnian presidency. He advocates secularism, liberalism and a European path for Bosnia as well as its citizens. He is opposed not only to Bakir Izetbegovic, the current Bosniak member of the presidency and the president of the SDA, but to the entirety of the SDA political experiment and its national ideology. The two of them are running a frenzied campaign against each other. Izetbegovic accuses Radoncic of having "a suspicious past", "a suspicious wealth", and "suspicious intentions", while Radoncic accuses Izetbegovic of "perpetuating a political system run by only five families", "nepotism", "corruption", and especially for turning to Turkey and for his close ties to President Erdogan. Radoncic states that Bosnia will "get rid of the Turkey-Iran-Russia triangle" and that he will make his country part of European integration.

While the SDP also employs growingly harsher rhetoric against Turkey, the DF is much more lenient towards Turkey and its presence in Bosnia and the Balkans. Interestingly, though, Dodik and Covic have taken almost neutral positions on Turkish-Bosnian/Bosniak relations (probably because of the current friendly ties between the Republic of Turkey and Serbia and Croatia).

Covic’s threat

The DF and its leader Zeljko Komsic, also a candidate for the Croat seat of the Bosnian presidency, provokes controversy on all sides, primarily on the Bosnian Croatian side. He served for a long time as a member of the presidency, representing the Croatian people, but he had received most of the votes from the Bosniaks living in the entity of the Federation of BiH. Covic threatens to provoke a constitutional crisis if Komsic garners a similar percentage of votes from the Bosniaks and beats him to the same position again. Therefore, he calls on his "Bosniak brothers" not to vote for Komsic this time.

Komsic’s policy

The essence of Komsic's pro-Bosnian policy is to abolish the ethnic divisions and the so-called notion of "founding people". This term, coined during the communist era, means that the three peoples constituted the state of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and not that Bosnia was the historical organic unity from which these peoples originated. Therefore, no one can claim a historical right to break up this internationally recognized state. Komsic is seeking a civic concept in effect in this European country as well as all others, which is the "one person - one vote" rule.

Dodik and Covic, radical advocates of ethnopolitics, however, do not want to hear any of this. According to them, such a concept will eventually give birth to an “Islamic state” in which the Serbs and Croats will disappear (according to the latest census, Bosnia-Herzegovina's population is composed of 51 percent Bosniak Muslims, 31 percent Orthodox Serbs, and 15 percent Catholic Croats). Many Bosniaks, Croats and Serbs of civic political orientation will surely vote for Komsic and his party, as well as people born from mixed marriages, who are offended by the Dayton Peace Agreement, in which they are referred to as “others”.

Anti-Turkish agendas remain unexplained 

Parties that oppose Turkey's influence in Bosnia and the Balkans have so far not presented to the public any persuasive arguments as to why they hold onto such opinions. The Republic of Turkey supports the peace, stability and prosperity of all nations and the newly emerging states in the Balkans, “with no hidden intentions” as President Erdogan put it during his latest visit to Sarajevo.

Where, then, does this animosity towards everything that is Turkish, especially against President Erdogan's policies, come from, and particularly given that most of it comes from Muslim, Bosniak politicians?

Probably their thinking is that they will not be able to seize power without the support of the Western countries that have also recently been leading anti-Turkish policies, fearing a strong, peaceful, and stable Turkey. Another reason is a complex stemming from having Muslim origins, from which a large part of the Bosniak population suffers, especially its westernized elite. But if they do manage to expel Turkey from Bosnia, Bosniaks will be isolated from the rest of the Ummah and then be left to the mercy of the Western powers, from whose policies this Muslim nation in Europe has suffered in the last hundred and fifty years almost as badly as their Palestinian brothers suffer in the Middle East.